Friday, January 19, 2007

BGs and Style - Part 4 - Use Organic Shapes AND FORMS

The manual pages below are about BG design, but they feature the principle of "organic" so I figure I better give you a clear definition of what I mean by that.Organic as opposed to mechanical or geometric. Natural objects are organic. They are uneven, they flow, they are not symmetrical, they are complex. Humans, animals, rocks, trees, rivers and old cartoons are organic.Nothing in reality is perfectly geometric. Man tries hard to make things into simple shapes and forms sometimes, like boxes, balls, mailing tubes and modern cartoons. This kind of form is simple, regular, predictable, easy and in most eras, boring.

Organic art uses smooth flowing lines and shapes describing various surfaces and densities and textures as opposed to geometric lines and shapes that describe all surfaces and substances stiffly and the same way. Organic art under control gives you an infinite palette of ideas to create from. Geometric is limited. There are only so many types of shapes you can make with straight lines and simple curves.

ORGANIC DRAWINGS

Organic comes in infinite variations and styles.Stylized cartoons can be organic - and should be.

Of course you have to be a much more sophisticated, intelligent, cultured and skilled craftsman to be able to take advantage of organic art, but if you regularly haunt this blog that's your goal, isn't it?

If you want the easy way, then get a circle template and a ruler and you can create cartoons like these:

GEOMETRIC DRAWINGS

Because the trend for the last 30 years has been stiff, regular and evenly composed art, it makes it hard for me to hire current artists-especially if they are over 25 and set in their ways. This happened to me on The Ripping Friends. I hired 2 Canadian studios who were used to drawing in the Canadian style, which is even stiffer than the LA styles. Jim Smith and John Dorman would draw brilliant backgrounds and character layouts and we would send them to the Canadian studios who would look at them in disbelief, toss them away and then "correct" the drawings by spacing every object in the scene on a grid and standing all the characters straight up and take out everything interesting or worth looking at.

LOOK AT HOW DIRTY CANADIANS DRAWGOD, HOW THEY MUST HATE KIDS.

So I made all these manuals to try to teach them. The younger folks, Helder, Kristy, Nick, Steve, Jose and a few more caught on quick. They hadn't been ruined by Nelvana yet. Jess already drew in an organic old fashioned sophisticated way, so I didn't have to teach her anything.

The studio's old guard of calcified brained 30 year olds and older were hopeless. They couldn't even grasp a single concept I wanted - and refused to even try.

So here's more free information for you. Learn it and practice it and if you become decent and functional, work for me. If you understand these concepts you will be suicidal working on Samurai Jack or the other million modern cartoons.

ahhhh jesus man...well this one clears a lot up for me. Flow and organic are two words I needed to hear. That changes a lot for me. Modern cartoons could lead one to believe the right way of drawing is all perfect, even, to the T, mathematical. You're absolutely right, it's not, and it's what I've been fighting all along with myself. I've never been able to be absolutely perfect. I hate using rulers. I'll have some drawings up soon.

Right on julian, i love Caesars toes. they're so toesy and their fingers too!!I love art nouveau stuff. Very composed organic no symmetry. I love mucha all in all! And the colors are amazing and the outlines of the people he draws. It reminds me of manga, i mean, the japs frame/ compose things in a similar way as he does, but they always draw the characters very stiff instead of flowing.

Simply amazing, John! This seriously puts me back on track. Its amazing when I go back and look at my drawings before college. They were fun and full of organic elements. Now I am desperately trying to unlearn all the theroies of the ruler syndrome that I picked up in college. Thanks!

another brilliant post John, there is so much truth in those lines! Very helpful, a true eye and brain opener!It's great that your theory is combined with some personal experience, I mean the time when you outsourced some of the work to the canadian studios. That makes reading your articles very interesting.

Jeez, John.... I hate to just say the same things everyone else is saying, but I need to, just to make sure know how much your work is appreciated. Your postings are wonderfully informative... just great. I stop by every day to see if there's a new post, and it makes my day when there is.

Reading them all, however, has made me wonder something, so can I ask a couple of questions for you to address here or perhaps in a future posting?

Do you see any shining lights now in the world of mainstream commercial animation? In your opinion, are there any good examples of commercially produced animation in the last twenty, thirty years that you haven't been involved in in some way? Or at least, bad works with SOME good aspects that show potential? And do you see any hope that the large corporate producers of commercial animation will improve, given that they make their decisions mostly on dollars and cents with little regard for the artistic merit of their product?

Great post, John! I'm straddling the line between influences, myself, but stuff like this helps to tip it back in the right direction. Do you know Paul Coker Jr's work (he was a MAD Magazine cartoonist from the 60's-today)?

Anyway, I hate to plug my own stuff, but if you (or anyone) cares to check it out, I've got lots of my work posted here:http://lunchbreak-pat.livejournal.com

Don't approve this comment through - I just wanted to ask you a question without having to get a MySpace account.

I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind if I made a forum for all we internet-pupils of yours - to help one-another out in exploring the lessons and share our work with eachother in a fashion rather more communitycentric than bloggery. As far as I know, one doesn't exist already.

If you please, send a jaunty oui or a shrill nein to:wannabeamemberwannabeamember@yahoo.com

Maybe it's the coloring, but Katie's example of organic designs reminds me of a cartoonist's (or illustrator, whatever) work I've seen in some childrens' novels. I'm thinking it was Quenton Blake. Or James Stevenson?

While we're on the subject of organic drawings, what's your opinion/critique on Joe Murray's cartoons (Rocko's Modern Life, Camp Lazlo)?

Hey, I've been looking into Ward Kimball's stuff lately, and it seems to me that he's a really good example of what is badly emulated with cardboard toons today. He makes shape, silhouette, and color seem so easy with his deceivingly simple character designs, but they do have serious 3 dimensionality and pliability. I tried copying some of his stuff, but only realized the fact afterwards. Organic shapes really comes full circle even with stylized design.

First, everything you post is just wonderful. However, I find it difficult to be able to say one style is better over another. Geometric and organic styles both take a lot of talent to render properly, and both styles can be rendered poorly. You have some great examples of poorly rendered geometric style. I think good geometric style exists, it's just different than organic style. It's like comparing Impressionism and Surrealism. Can you say one of those styles is better over another?Anyway, just wanted throw that in there. Thanks again for the great posts. I look forward to more.

You're right, most modern cartoons don't seem to contain any organic forms.

I'm curious what you think of some of the early to mid 1990s commercial cartoons, some of which had really great organic forms, like Animaniacs or the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Milton Knight worked on the funny Robotnik character in the latter.

Hey john, i just made a BG for an animation im making for my final college work, and i would really apreciate your oppinion about it! If its shitty, you can say it is, i really want to learn.link to the BG:http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cenariotvpd4.jpg

>> I'm not disagreeing with you or anything, but Copernicus studios, who helped you make "Close but no Cigar"I am pretty sure they are canadian.

john and katie drew every key on paper and we tried our best not to ruin 'em.

>>Jim Smith and John Dorman would draw brilliant backgrounds and character layouts and we would send them to the Canadian studios who would look at them in disbelief, toss them away and then "correct" the drawings by spacing every object in the scene on a grid and standing all the characters straight up and take out everything interesting or worth looking at.

We were told at said canadian studio by the bitter veterans our drawings had to be very on model, because the indian studio's animators would just slap a spacing chart on the layout pose and inbetween it. We have one of those "careless" indian animators in OUR studio she's one of our best artists.

If ever there was a time I wanted your feedback it is now. I've finished my first color painting ever. I'm sure your critque would be most helpful for future refrence. It's a little too centered. I started trying to apply your rules for color and composition after I had already started. The Frazetta paintings you posted were the most helpful. Perhaps I'm trying to take on too complicated a scene right off the bat. I promise to take whatever critique you give me to heart and practice as much as possible. Thank you.

Ok, So this might be a stupid question, but on the cinderblocks page, it seems that the artist is consciously aware of the perspective of those objects, but doesn't seem to be following any strict fundamentals. Is it neccesary to be accurate and start with vanishing points or should you just let your natural sense of depth illustrate the scene?

Hey, John, don't mean to bring up something we've beaten to death already, but on the subject of the Cal-Arts style: I just realized that "the Incredibles" characters are actually 3 dimensional representations of this style. Do you concur?

Did you see this interstitial thing that TCM is running, where Michael Douglas is talking about Kirk? It's nice. They mostly show clips of Kirk being layered and complex, but at some point, of course, he completely blows up.

I think one big reason people are open to all these bad conventions is that - when they look at them, to their untrained eyes, it seems like something fresh and new. They don't know about flat UPA stuff, etc., so when Dexter's Lab came out, they were all," Wow! So different!" So by that theory, it's a fad, and it's only a matter of time before depthy, organicky drawings come back into vogue with the corporate types. I noticed that Class of 3000 (hideously atrociousious though it may be) has reintroduced the curved line to television. So maybe it's been long enough since Dexter's for people to finally start tiring of it.

Speaking of the corporate types, I'm also theorizing that - Since, in our current system, animators are beholden to corporations, and since that's not fostering quality, we need to find new a system, to break out of this mess. Or maybe use an old system, like when art was all commissioned by kings. Like you could have a Ren & Stimpy feature, funded by the emperor of Mongolia. Or turn to organized crime. That's a zillion dollar industry. There must be a way to funnel some of that money into quality animation, without getting your legs broken.

i am wondering why i was French and inmsomniac, now i know it is to discover your blog

What a bad man i was

. I LOVE your work since a while and in a way because of Frank Zappa ( hey a compliment, you're for me a mix of Tex Avery and Mr Zappa, not too bad ) i simply didn't know you ve got a so good blog , i m reading all of it in the next days . And i m going to draw again like hell and do shit everyday .

I recently found out that you directed a sequence on Class of 3000 - a sequence which I found to be the only good part of that show so far, but that's besides the point. I look at Class of 3000 outside of your sequence and I see what essentially is modern cartoons with more flexible characters, superior background design, and in terms of actual content (story, characters, plot, writing, etc.), beyond lacking.

I also noticed that you haven't mentioned the Class of 3000 stint on your blog as of yet - what are your feelings concerning the show? I think that in terms of design they're on the right track, but I also think that there's more to a cartoon to just design - which is one of the reasons why older cartoons are so good, is because they also knew this and backed up solid cartooning with excellent writing.

its great to learn from you, its teaching me a lot of things that i dont know, i am going to art school as well as study animation but still they dont teach me how to build character stuff. need to start to looking around great people for inspiration and i found your blog :) and animation archive!

Hey John, great stuff!I'm trying to learn more about the right color for my sketches. Come see my blog: http://sketchesofcorey.blogspot.comI'm posting some drawings and I wanted to get your opinion on some. Well, now I only have one. I just started my blog. I can't wait for Sody Pop & George Liquor!

It bugs me SO MUCH when people try to imitate computer crap with their pencils. It's like how drummers imitated loops and drum machines in the 80's.

Last year I was trying to find an animation drawing tutor or teacher (Good luck finding one in Montreal). One dude, 20 years old or so, had a great sense of gesture and knew all the principles but he deliberately flattened it all down into triangles and circles with the big fat silhouette line like so many do now.

I told him, "Man, I can't stand that Tartakofsky/McCracken stuff. It's so flat and alienating!" He said, "You know what? You have to open your mind a bit. I used to hate it too, but the more you draw, the more you'll want to try different things and find out what you really like."

I thought, "I can't be corrupted this easily. I'm going to be very choosy about what I learn from this guy." I'm glad I stuck to my guns.

And get this - these guys are all too quick to blast the 80's cartoons. But the 80's were the last era to have any semblance of volumetric layouts, textured backgrounds, characters who moved in true (albeit very sloppy) 3-dimentional space and even the slightest traces of organic curves.

Now before I get flamed, I don't need a laundry list of things they did wrong in the 80's, I know them all. But my point is that they sure as hell didn't look like

i'm not sure if you realize how eye-opening your posts are even for non-artists. you're so eloquent and passionate in describing these fundamentals; it's inspiring.

i cannot tell you how many times i read your posts and think "so *that's* why i hate/love this style." thank you so much for verbalizing and illustrating these details. if it's invaluable to me, i can only imagine how helpful it is to artists.

To start off with, I LOVE YOUR WORK. I love your world you create for your animation. You have a formula that you stick with and use threw out everything you do.What I have a hard time understanding is how you make it seem that if you don't do it your way it WRONG.Every animation has a style, ingredients they use to make there world come to life. It not wrong if they choose this way and use it threw out there work. I feel that every animation work in diffrent ways. Some animation it very stiff geometrical not organic and IT WORK VERY WELL. People respond to it and like it for what it is. Just because it not flued animation and every frame is a new drawing doesn't meen it doesn't work. Your stuff is amazing for what it is and it work for what you do. But it won't work for everything. So all I'm saying is sometimes people create work that are stiff and geomatric and other work for being smooth and organic. Crude animation make me laugh because of how raw and cheap the animation is. Your stuff make me laugh to in different way. I'm asking do you hate any animation that doesn't use the same tecnique as you. Most people who comment on this blog make it seem only one way and doesn't look at both sides.

I work in an office but have been a doodler and sketcher for years, and i feel i'm never going to stop learning and understanding the concepts of creating fun art to draw and see that's not stale and void of life. I'm reading your blog all the time and taking notes(well practicing the new stuff I learned on my own creations). Thanks. Your statements on cartoons and the cartoons you do show me that my kid will have good cartoons to grow up with and not this ugly factory cartoons all over cable. I'll keep up the learning and doodling. Maybe you'll hear from me one day or receive some of my cartoons. Thanks a million, Mr.K!

Just out of curiousity to do you find yourself browsing over to CG Talk?

You're break down of the art styles was straightforward. Could give me some other websites that in your opinion would be benifitial to a art student in computer Animation? I give props to my art teacher for introducing me to you. -J

Hello from a retired 2d asst animator/ designer dinosaur... While I find some designy flat shape animation kind of fun and pretty to look at, I do prefer a little bit of overlapping action in MY scene...From my more recent experience it's been , "design by schedule", often with a frantic director and nervous producter on my hiney, and knowing that computers can animated a triagle much faster than cartoon shapes with weight and soul and all...well... it's just economics. Anyone who has been in da biz long enough will see that it's the bottom line that matters to many a folk these days. It's a tough to be in a trendy based biz.

John, there is something I don't quite understand, I would like to know your opinion: Why does Alex Ross draws geometric versions of DC superheroes?-I found some in his page... I know he sells 'Em, well, but I don't know what might he feel about that kind of drawns... I thought if you don't know the reason, atleast maybe you can tell me what you think about that. Hehe, I hope I made my question clear, I don't speak english very well... Did I tell you I learned to speak english thanks to Ren & Stimpy? Haha, sure I did in some other post, I just wanted to thank you again :)

I think I am an old fashioned artist even while I am 28.when I was a kid I was taught never to use the ruler for drawing,I thing this is one of the reasons why I can`t draw using shape tools on computer. I just recall this after reading this post...

John, that Batman design is a redesign from the retooled version of the Batman Animated Series, which donned the characeters with those awful geometric corner-covered designs.

The original episodes were much, much better designed, having actual construction and weight in the designs--although it's still really stiff and crudely animated, so it's still not something you'd want to watch.

Apparently the original designs were too much for the budget, so they opted for those geometric designs later.